Push-to-talk (PTT) handsets have been used for some time by emergency personnel but also have recently begun to grow in general popularity. PTT handsets contain a single PTT button that enables the user to communicate with a group of users on the same channel. The communications between the PTT handsets occur at one of a set of isolated frequencies that is selected by a knob on the PTT handsets. To communicate with users on other channels, the user manually switches the channel at the PTT handset thereby changing the transmission and reception frequency. Each time the channel is switched, however, it takes a certain amount of set up time to establish the PTT device on the newly selected channel. This can cause the PTT handset to miss valuable incoming communication on both the previous channel and the new channel.
While for casual users, this may not be troublesome, it may be particularly problematic for emergency personnel who often have to communicate with multiple groups of users on different channels. In emergency situations, such personnel may need to communicate with the different groups on different frequencies relatively quickly. However, as each handset receives and transmits at a single selected frequency, each group with whom the user wishes to communicate thus requires the user to carry an additional handset. As a result, the emergency personnel often carry multiple handsets to ensure they can monitor and communicate with multiple groups simultaneously. The use of multiple radios minimizes information loss as well as the cycle time to transmit and receive.
However, carrying multiple radios is cumbersome and potentially dangerous. In particular, as above, emergency situations may require rapid instructions and quick responses to inquiries to avoid injury. However, possessing a variety of handsets may be detrimental to responding in a timely fashion as the user may have search to determine the radio requiring information. Further, multiple groups may be communicating simultaneously, causing the voice streams from the different radios to overlap and thereby creating confusion. In addition, if the user has to juggle multiple handsets, it is significantly more likely that one of the handsets will be misplaced or dropped, the latter potentially resulting in catastrophic damage to the handset.